Lee Rourke - Vulgar Things

[He pulls up a book from his lap, so that it can be seen on camera, his eyes just visible above it. He reads slowly.]

Seeking for ever in whatever place … Some crudely copied shadowy hint of you.

[He places the book back down on his lap. He stares into the camera. His eyes well up with tears. He wipes his eyes.]

Isn’t that just beautiful? Isn’t it? … Oh, those words, those words, they seem so true to me and yet whatever I say, whatever I write, it doesn’t, it collapses under the weight of its own inauthenticity … No matter what I do, I’ll never be true to myself here … A shadowy hint … Crudely copied … that’s me all over … And just to think of it, of her, the centre of all this for me … I remember when I first saw her, my own Laura … She was with him, I couldn’t even touch her if I wanted to, he brought her to me, home to meet our parents. I was younger, I was insignificant, an age of no importance. She was beautiful, she was so, so beautiful … and I loved her there and then, I loved her from that moment I’m sure of that … I swear I did … and I knew I always would. I was trembling, I was sure she could see me trembling. I’d never seen such beauty, such elegance … The way she smiled at me when we were introduced, I could barely stand up, but I did. I managed it, half respectable, but still an idiot, a fool, a moron before her … it was like her very essence had been injected into me. This new love I felt was coupled with an immediate suffering, the thought that she wasn’t mine to love … The thought that she didn’t love me … It was that sudden. That’s how it hit me. I shudder recounting … that’s how Virgil put it, anyway … it’s too much to bear … it was real and I didn’t know what to do. But my Laura, I can … I can see you now …

[He picks up the book and reads from it again. His voice trembles and stammers.]

I’d see the snowbound roses of her lips quivering … and that glint of ivory that marbles the onlooker … Every reason I’d see wherefore my joy outstrips the pain of it …

[He holds the book tightly to his chest.]

Maybe this is where I should leave it? Yes? No? Simply take leave of this world tonight? Here in this wretched caravan … My worthless fucking life, crippled by its own excesses … Maybe that’s what I should do? Disappear into the blackness of night … To look back, never to return … You see, I’ve always wanted to be truthful, I’ve always wanted to bring truth’s mystery back up to the light of day … yet I’ve never been fucking truthful, how could I? Who the fuck do I think I am? Oh fucking God, I’ve wanted to tell everyone the truth … the truth … But I’ve always failed, turned my back on it, kept it hidden … all those times I’ve been so close … so fucking close to it and I’ve backed away at the last minute … I’m nothing but a coward … Nothing like Aeneas the True … Nothing like him. Oh to be truthful, oh to sing the fucking truth … This duplicitous sham of a life I live, fraught with the excess of shameful abandon … I could have been so true to her, to my Laura … and to him … I could have been so truthful to him.

[He stops to pour himself a glass of whiskey. He takes a long gulp from his glass. Finishes it, then takes a quick glug from the bottle before refilling the glass.]

That’s the aim … to be truthful, never to deviate, always to rewrite, to reveal the truth I’ve hidden from view all my life … And if I can’t do that, well, I’m fucking nothing … and oblivion awaits me.

I leave Uncle Rey’s caravan without any breakfast and head straight for Toledo Road. I arrive in Southend quickly and seamlessly, like a somnambulist waking up in a desired destination. It’s early and the road is quiet, except for office workers making their way to Southend Central Station to begin their daily commute into London. I momentarily think about the job I’ve just lost. I’m happy, that’s how it feels. The idea of sitting in that office with those people sickens me. London seems like a fading memory to me, like a fading dream. I’m happy to have escaped their clutches, even if it might only be for the duration of my task at hand. It doesn’t matter to me now, right now this minute. Nothing does. Even this morning, when I stumbled off the sofa and back into the same clothes, I remember thinking nothing, absolutely nothing, just going with the flow, and enjoying the peculiar lightness of it for a moment, before my urge to see her again truly kicked in.

It doesn’t matter at all, now. Especially the thought of that office, of the life I used to lead. All that is behind-hand now. All that matters is finding her again — seeing her, speaking to her. The thought of seeing her, catching her glance, that’s what I want. It’s real. It’s a real feeling: knowing that she lives somewhere along Toledo Road. I can feel it. It’s up to me to find her, to wait for her there for as long as it takes.

She’s beginning to haunt me more than I can imagine. It’s like I’ve been programmed to do this, or something, as if some force is controlling me. I have three perfect images of her floating behind my eyes: the pier, the creek and the pub by the station. It was her each time; the same girl, the same image of her. When I eventually do stop to think I realise that something is bothering me: it’s something about the way Mr Buchanan acted last night over dinner. He seemed eager to get rid of me, I think. Like something was troubling him.

Another thing’s bothering me, too: the recording of Uncle Rey I watched last night. He seemed different, less manic, more in control. Now that I am away from the recordings — his voice, his words, his face, the eyes looking directly into the lens — now that I am away from all that, it strikes me that something other than the struggle to articulate his book must be happening in each of his recordings: each must reveal some sort of clue. There was this ‘Laura’ for a start. Who is she? What’s the connection between her and Uncle Rey? Then, just a moment ago, as I was waiting to cross Queensway at the pelican crossing, it occurred to me that Uncle Rey had been talking about my father. It was Father who brought Laura to him. Even before I reach the other side of the road I realise that Laura is my mother. Which is odd; she’s someone I hardly think about usually. Not that much, anyway. I haven’t seen her since I was a child, for a start. I can’t think what Uncle Rey is trying to say. It’s weighing down on me, but it’s all got to wait. I have to find her first, before any of that.

I look at my phone. It’s early. Early enough for me to spend the majority of the day waiting for her to appear, if that’s what it takes. And I’m confident she will. It’s a matter of waiting. I’m just like a fielder in the slips in a test match: waiting for the event, the moment everything suddenly slots into place: positioning, geometry, trajectory, sight, observance, all colliding, all joining as one to form the event. Just as I put my phone back into my rucksack it begins to vibrate; a text message from Cal:

how’s it going? been ringin you all nite. C.

I look at my missed calls: Cal has indeed been ringing throughout the night; strange that I missed them. I count nine missed calls from him in total. I try to forget about it. He’ll only want to know how the clearance is going. I’ve other things on my mind right now. I decide to call him later in the evening, after I’ve found her and made sure she’s safe.

I walk up the grass verge between Toledo Road and Queensway. I set my stick down on the grass below a large cherry tree and sit down. For some reason I look up at the sky through the branches: a thin veil of grey cloud is covering it. I think about what I saw last night: the constellations, the planets, all swirling around in the night sky. It’s strange to realise that they’re all still there, behind that thin layer of grey cloud, swirling above me as I sit here on the damp grass. Something grips me and I suddenly want to know if Saturn is up there. I need to know that everything is still in its correct place, just beyond and out of reach, just where it should be. The thought of it all disappearing is too much to bear. It all seems so fragile, too unstable, as if some fall or crash in the universe is imminent. I’ve had similar thoughts at different times throughout my life, of course. This is nothing new.